Alternate Proficiency Assessment (APA) results for proficiency are added to the special education and other subgroup calculations. Participation for students taking the APA is included.

For limited English proficient (LEP) students, the full flexibility of the law is applied. Results for students who have exited from English language instructional programs are included for up to two years.

For the racial/ethnicity student subgroup, any combination of Hispanic coding, i.e., Hispanic and White, students are counted in the Hispanic category only.

A 95% confidence interval (CI) is applied to all proficiency measures for both the total school and student subgroup performance. A 75% CI is applied for safe harbor calculations. Refer to Understanding Accountability in New Jersey for 2008 State Assessments at www.nj.gov/education/title1/accountability/ayp/0809 for more information.

For participation calculations, the student count is 40, that is, subgroups with 40 or more students are calculated. For proficiency, the student count is 30: subgroups must have 30 or more students to be calculated for proficiency.

A dash (-) in the “Made 95% Participation Rate” and “Made AYP Benchmark Target” columns denote no students or less than the required number of students in a student subgroup.

Participation averaging is applied if a school or LEA generally achieves 95% participation but misses it on a particular year. Then, participation rates for three years can be averaged to meet the 95% rate.

Safe harbor is calculated for the total population and all student subgroups.

Safe harbor is attained if the proportion of students in the subgroup or the total population scoring partially proficient is reduced by 10% over the previous year.

For 2008 only, safe harbor is calculated using an alternative method for grades 5-8 that statistically links the old and new tests. The table below provides those linked scores on the 2008 test for each grade and subject area.

Linked Cut Score

Grade

Language Arts Literacy

Mathematics

5

161

203

6

190

205

7

190

181

8

188

175

New targets are established for grades 3-8 for both content areas.

Language Arts Literacy Targets

Grades 3-5

Grades 6-8

School Years

Original Target

New Target

Original Target

New Target

2008-2010

82

73

76

72

2011-2013

91

86

87

86

2014

100

100

100

100

Mathematics Targets

Grades 3-5

Grades 6-8

School Years

Original Target

New Target

Original Target

New Target

2008-2010

73

69

62

61

2011-2013

85

84

79

80

2014

100

100

100

100

IEP exempt students are calculated for AYP; exemption refers to graduation requirements only.

Schools currently identified as in need of improvement that have too few students to be analyzed in all the subgroups remain in their current improvement status.